Page 14 of Off Trail Love
jack
When we start hiking again,Maggie hangs back while Fiona takes the lead. “We may never get where we’re going with her in the front.”
“What? Why?” Graham asks.
Maggie laughs. “She’s notoriously good at not following a map or trail and landing us in sticky situations.”
“I’ll hike with her. The two of you behave.” He moves up ahead to take the lead with Fiona.
“I see you’ve decided to hike with me.”
A smirk appears on her face. “Gotta keep my enemies close and all that.”
“Do you go around kissing all of your rivals?” I blurt out. My cheeks go warm when it takes her a moment to answer.
“Can’t say I do.”
“So, I’m just the lucky guy who happens to be the man you hate the most?” I ask it in a teasing voice, but I really want to know the answer.
“I don’t hate you the most.” She glances at me, and in looking up from the trail, she stumbles. I reach out to grab her, but she steadies herself and looks back down at the path. “That title goes to snakes.”
I put a hand on my heart. “Oh, I’m honored not to be at the top of your hate list, just below snakes.”
“You should be. It would take a lot more than what you did to get you to the top of the list.”
This is my chance. I should ask her what I did to make her hate me so much. But instead, I change the subject. “It’s a pity, don’t you think, that when we go hiking we have to spend so much time looking at the ground and not enough looking out at the nature around us?”
“Ha,” she says. “Changing the subject, I see. Not ready to own up to your crimes. Fine, fine. We can talk about something else. And yeah, I have to remind myself to look up every now and then. I can’t risk it all the time, this trail is too rocky.”
“So, what have you been up to?” I ask. “Besides losing your job?”
“Well, I was working most of the time. I had my own place in Laguna Beach, but I don’t think I’ll be able to stay there. My lease ends at the end of the month and I don’t really have any money saved.”
“Don’t realtors make a lot?”
She nods. “Yeah, I guess. I just haven’t been very good with my money. I have some saved, but not enough to keep living the way I have been for more than a few months. I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do next. What about you, did you start working for your dad after college?”
“I started working for him while I was still going to school, actually.”
“That’s great. I know you always wanted to do that.”
“What I really wanted to do was stay in California so I could be close to you.” Maybe it’s too bold of me to say; maybe the mountains are already making me braver. “You always said you wanted to stay close to family.”
She looks at me then, her blue eyes crashing into mine so fiercely that I have to stop walking or I may trip and fall. “What?” I ask.
She tilts her head. “I don’t get you.”
“What’s not to get?”
“You’re still a flirt.”
“What’s that got to do with anything, love?”
Her cheeks turn pink. “I just don’t get it.”
“Get what?” I ask as we start to walk down the trail again.
“How you can still flirt with me after everything that happened.” She sighs like she regrets bringing it up.
